It may be budget season, but lawmakers still have election on the mind.

Earlier this week, Democrat House Speaker Joanna McClinton introduced a bill she would like to see in 2026, allowing early voting and day of registration. On the same day, Republicans held a press conference asking counties to clean up their voter registration data.

While election goals abound… fact is that November 5 is just five months away, which means county election offices have limited time to implement election changes.
Still, one court case, one bill, and one attempt at a constitutional amendment vote could still be pulled into the mix.

First, should a mail-in ballot be thrown out if the outer envelope is undated or incorrectly dated? A federal appeals court in March said the ballots should be thrown out. Last week, a group of non profits sued the state department saying those ballots should be counted.

Depending on when the court case is resolved could impact how election offices manage curing mail-in ballots this November (curing ballots is checking the external envelope for mistakes and giving the voter an opportunity to fix the mistake).

Second, the House passed a pre-canvassing bill in May that now sits in the Senate. Pre-canvassing allows election offices to sort and open mail in ballots up to 7 days before election day—which can speed up counting on the day of.

“Many of us remember 4 years ago waiting till Saturday, to get results from Tuesday. That’s a long time,” said McClinton. “Many states all around us do not do it that way and are able to tell even within 24 hours, confidently, here’s who won the election.”

Republicans are okay with pre-canvassing, but want other election reform in exchange for moving the bill. House GOP has said they want to see voter i.d. required at every election, instead of just the first election which is current law.

Republicans are working to pass a Constitutional Amendment out of the House so Pennsylvanians can vote on if they want the law or not come November.

“The 2024 general election is going to be one of the highest turnout elections in Pennsylvania history,” said Rep. Bryan Cutler, the House Minority Leader in a press conference earlier this year. "Putting a voter identification constitutional amendment on the ballot for this Novemebr guarantees that the most voices will have a say in this very important issue.”

If the pre-canvassing bill is passed into law, it goes into effect within 60 days. In order for a Constitutional Amendment to appear on a ballot, it needs to have passed both the House and Senate at least 90 days before election day.